Posts by Rankor

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#6: Your patcher must be pretty bad, in rankor's oponion, if you cant add 5 weps without needing a player whipe and huge server crash......

Hold on there... Don't try to put words in my mouth.
That's not what I said.
Changing .cmp and loadout files require a lot of work AND if there are any mistakes, that could cause a crash.

ALSO, as OP-R8R said,

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...if you add or change something on the mod and dont make sure that ALL the player files (which means about 4000) support these changes then the result might be a crashing server...that has nothing to do with the patcher.

In my own experience:
Such changes require completely new downloads and fresh installs of the original Freelancer for the updates to take effect. If you try to install it over the a previous version, you're going to end up with one hell of a mess simply because of file conflicts.

Argos, thanks for reminding me about the real costs.
I must be thinking in early 1900's money terms...LOL
when battleships cost only in the millions. (hundreds of millions ? ) and equipment cost in the hundreds of thousands. Geeesh... good thing it's only a game, aye?

patience grasshopper.
Freelancer has been out about 4 or 5 years now..and by the standards of todays gamers..it's considered an old game now. (God FORBID) Even if this game is getting old, It still facinates me and I still keep playing it, modding it and adding stuff to it.

I do agree that battleships should be incredibly tough to take down. That no lone fighter should be able to take it down. (Hurt it badly if it hits a critical part of the ship) . Historically, sometimes a lone fighter can sink a battleship. (Doolittle proved that, but in that case the target ship wasn't shooting back at him or he probably would have been toasted)

A lone "Sailfish" Biplane crippled the Bismark (Sorry OP-R8R) and made it possible for the British Navy to finish it off.

One suggestion I could offer is this:
In what I'm doing, the battleships have incredible hull strengths..so no lone fighter is going to be able to kill it anyway. Even if you get the shields down, the hull strength alone will take an extended beating. IF it's equipped with fast tracking defense missles, a fighter wing is going to have an extremely difficult time trying to take it down.
However, an exception to this is the Sunslayer Torpedo.
Capable of 250,000 hull, 125,000 energy damage. 500-750 blast radius. (remember I said my PB3 has 6,000,000 hull) . Also consider the price of using Sunslayers..at 3 million per torpedo, you're not likely to dispense them like candy or you'll go bankrupt buying a new set of them for that purpose. (THATS THE BALANCE)
Hit a capital ship with that, if it doen't kill the battleship, it will certainly knock all the weapons off of it leaving it vulnerable to attack. So, when you're faced with purchasing all new equipment for your battleship..THAT gets expensive when the prices are adjusted properly.
However, planet diving or star kissing sort of destroys the true Role Play aspect of taking damage and having to incure the cost of repairs which for all practical purposes should cost millions. Players have to be more "honorable" to make that Role Play aspect worth while.
Sure, nobody wants to have to go back and buy all new equipment again..so they "cut corners" . I ask you, where is the Role Play in that? If I had it my way, I'd remove the damage factor of planets and stars so players on a multiplayer server could not commit suicide. Then, they'd be forced to go back and get repairs.
I'd have it set up in such a way, that when equipment is lost during a fight and the ship is finally destroyed, the player flying the ship respawns, but without the equipment that was lost before his ship was destroyed.

In reality, battleship armor should reflect some kind of "real world" statistics. Hit points of less than 100,000 just don't do that. They should always be in the millions.
I haven't looked at the Crossfire Ships in a very long time, so I can't say anything as to how they're presently coded.

OP-R8R has his reasons for leaving the ships the way they are right now. Like I said, making changes takes a lot of work. Basically, I think they're meant more like a "Clan Status Symbol" than a true combat ship.
If one particular battleship seems more powerful than others, then just defer to use that ship instead.

If all else fails, do what I did...learn to mod and code.
I don't know how old you are, but I'm 52. (old fart)
Since I began learning how to do stuff with Freelancer, I'll probably keep playing it until I go blind or die first.

To set up turret hardpoints so you could interchange all the battleship turrets, would require a serious reworking of the ship .cmp and loadout.ini files.
This would require more work than you can imagine to change this. Then to top it off, it would most likely require a complete player wipe to get the updated files to register. Worse, if there are any errors... you're looking at a major server crash with a lot of down time to repair it. With a crash like that, I shudder to think of the overall consequences to the players and their files.
If anybody else has tried modding before, I think you'll understand where I'm coming from on this.

I think it's best for now to let it well enough alone. OP-R8R has his hands full as it is. If and when he feels up to it, he'll probably give it a go. But for now, it's best not to push the issue.
Respects fellas.

Hey Sona, you might remember me from some of my posts on the Lancers Reactor.
Personally, I think one of the tougher ships is the Nomad Attack Carrier, but I don't think that's buyable anyway...but it is a tough ship. I think I'd side with the nomads on this one if I could.

In the mod I've been working on, my toughest battleship can be cut to shreads by the nomads. (well, parhaps that's because they're using modified Mark03 nomad lasers with a refire rate of 4 each) and the battleship has an armor rating of 3 million with two class 10 shields.

ANYWAY... why not just get the better of the ships rather than try to get them changed? Might work better that way. (Fight fire with fire)
Besides, if you threaten to leave a server, chances are likely someone will hold the door open for you.

Okay. whenever we get that chance and catch each other on the IM.

Sorry for the odd post here...
but:
OP-R8R, what did you want to talk with me about m8?

Rankor

I hate to say this, but Strail is allowing something going on with the Void that biting him in his keester. It's driving newbs off his server. If he was going to keep it "Freelancerish" he shouldn't have put in the non-freelancer ships, that's one of the problems along with the "undisclosed" permissions going on and causing trouble.

As far as Space is concerned, both CF and Void have given me some of my greatest inspirations and ideas.
I salute you OP-R8R.

@ SWAT_OP-R8R
You've being reasonably patient with an apparently arrogant bunch of folks who've taken it upon themselves to violate a T.O.U. regarding your mod.
I have to tip my hat and salute you bud.
I would have castrated them so fast they would have never seen it coming.
It was incredibly arrogant of them to ban you from their forum.
As far as I'm concerned...they're history.

Raquel Welch and Sophia Loren....
Those were the days.

I've always wondered what is the usefulness of a dual boot option.
What is it for?

Had me worried there for a minute Gork. I thought you were talking to me! LOL

Ouch......that's all I can say.

If that is true...then I am definately wrong about my dates. My apologies.
But, is Freelancer a 16 bit or 32 bit game? I could be wrong about that too then.

Anyway...background progams seem to be the culprit in causing lag. (on my pc anyway.)

During my travels, I stumbled on the Old Sirius System.
This was packed like a metropolis. But although the nav map looks crowded, I could not believe how far apart the solar systems were.

Then, I traveled through the Eagle nebula system, mapping it out. I took this screenshot from in front of the highest planet in the system, a planet called, "Phalanx".

Vista is a 64bit edition where XP is a 32.
If I am correct, Freelancer is only 16 bit was created before XP came out; so anything played on XP or Vista has to be "backward" compatable.
Biggest trick to playing is probably the RAM capacity. But I don't think a 16bit based game is going to put alot of stress on a 32 or 64 bit processor. Even less a super video card.
It's usually the background programs that are running at the same time which are causing the issues.
(detectors, updaters, anti spyware and some anti virus programs.)
Im not saying to turn off your anti virus program though.
In a recent lag incident, I noticed after the fact that my windows updater had been working in the background. I only found this out when I began to shut my pc down and got the screen notice that updates were waiting to be installed.

Why not just explore, trade here and there...enjoy the views and watch your six.
Sure, making alot of credits is needed to buy bigger ships. But, hey...why not just enjoy the ride while you're on your way to buying that ship, eh?
Nobody says you have to rush to get something. (although, I know I tend to rush). But I suppose Im getting at an age now where I'm kind of slowing down a bit. I like the vistas. They're something I can wrap up in a beer with.

Since I started making systems....
I hate to say that I "destroyed" the solar system...
It only has Pluto for a planet, a burned out small planet for what use to be the sun (called Sol Core), 2 rocky stations (Terra Beacon 1 and Io Station), massive....MASSIVE....planetary debris fields...

There is a massive ring extending from the Sol Core the the edges of the system.
You encounter Rogues, Junkers and DSE all patrolling together ...then the nomads.....nomads.....nomads.....and more nomads.
I thought the mother ship would have been the last of them...but they apparently left behind an occupationary faction.
Looks like the mother ship (Nomad_Mother2) has moved on to another "human" infested system to blast that sun to anti-matter.
Dang it....I lost the photo of the Nomad_Mother2...(she's a monster).

But I continued on until I reached the Eagle Nebula System in my D1954_SC (smuggler class ship).

Hello folks.
I've been away for a while, but have found my way back to continue with moddeling and modding.
I took care of my parents till they passed away early this year.
I've got alot of ships and a few stations...I've also began to create systems. Eagle Nebula is one of my favorites. But I've also managed to jamm all the major houses into one system...However...each "house solar system" sits on its own plane in the system. (map looks a little crowded...but that is deceptive. This system is huge).
Regards to all and especially to SWAT-OP-R8R.

Rankor
Sirius-Engineering.org

A view from Planet Wagner in New Sirius.

New Locust_LF